


Bold Venture

by severinne



Series: Twin Spires Trilogy [1]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Age Difference, Child Abuse, Daddy Issues, Drugged Sex, Dubious Consent, M/M, Mirror Universe, Outdoor Sex, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-21
Updated: 2010-08-21
Packaged: 2017-10-15 02:12:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/severinne/pseuds/severinne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young, ambitious, 17-year-old Leonard McCoy dreams of enlisting in the Imperial Fleet and Christopher Pike might be the very man to get him there, for a price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bold Venture

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Reunions: Whole](https://archiveofourown.org/works/62907) by [shinychimera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinychimera/pseuds/shinychimera), [Yeomanrand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/pseuds/Yeomanrand). 



> Written for the ISS Enterprise Remix Challenge; this work is remixed from 'Reunions (Summer)' by shinychimera and yeomanrand.
> 
> Bold Venture was the winner of the 1936 Kentucky Derby with his teenaged apprentice jockey Ira Hanford.

Kicking hard though the kitchen door, Leonard strode like a storm into the house, soaked to the skin and at dire risk of a thrashing if his father were to spot him in this sorry state.

He shoved his fingers through the long tendrils of hair slapping into his eyes, pushing the clumping brown strands back from his equally wet face as he elbowed through a kitchen crowded with hired help and heaps of canapés, nimbly negotiated corridors choked by elaborate arrangements of blood-red roses waiting to be carried out to the dining marquee. The bustle of preparations provided Leonard with much-needed cover as he rushed to the entrance hall and bounded up the grand staircase, effortlessly jumping three steps in each frantic stride.

The Kentucky Derby had been run on the first Saturday of May for centuries far predating the founding of the Empire, and Leonard reckoned that if he bothered to search deep enough through the annals of his family’s storied legacy, he would learn that these Derby garden parties had always and forever been held on the last Sunday of April, long before Churchill Downs was a twinkle in any old Colonel’s eye.

Leonard hated the McCoy Derby parties with all the passion his teenaged indifference could muster. The ritual caused complete upheaval of his parents’ otherwise quiet estate and dragged on with a painful slowness that mocked the fleeting excitement of the two-minute race of the following weekend. It was little more than an excuse Georgia’s elite to reinforce pecking order before the herd lumbered en masse to Louisville where they would repeat the whole damn exercise on a grander scale – in short, utterly worthless.

On reaching the privacy of the second floor, Leonard wasted no time disentangling himself from his drenched jacket, shirt and tie as he stomped down the long corridor, gathering it all into a squelching fistful of fabric that wrung out droplets in his wake. That, too, would earn him a beating if he didn’t mop it up straight away, but it would be nothing to what that little Darnell bitch would have coming from her mother once she saw the mud Leonard had thrown all over her pretty floral frock, scooped spitefully from the riverbed where she had shoved him in the water for a juvenile prank.

Despite his own ruined state, Leonard smirked as he shouldered his way through the oak double doors of his bedroom. Still savouring the vengeful pleasure of seeing the silly girl’s cruel grin evaporate into tears, he had already taken three steps into his room before he was forcibly reminded that it was already occupied.

The McCoys’ antebellum home was large enough to offer several guest suites down the next wing, and still his parents insisted on giving _his_ room to any prestigious out-of-towner deemed worthy of the extra space. He hated the imposition, the loss of his privacy, even to a celebrated Commander of the Fleet. Admittedly, that was a hell of a social coup on his mother’s part, an honour and an opportunity that had itched at Leonard’s thoughts ever since he had been set to cleaning for his arrival, but still it rankled.

Then he clapped eyes upon their guest for the first time, and any lingering resentment flew out of Leonard’s lungs, leaving him breathless and stunned. All that effort spent reading up on the Commander in anticipation of his arrival, and it had never occurred to him to find out just how damn sexy he was.

Shirtless back turned to the door, Commander Christopher Pike was leaning against the wide window seat overlooking the gardens, head turned aside to offer Leonard a striking glimpse of a handsome, somewhat ironic face in profile. The Commander’s jaw worked absently as he gazed onto the grounds, and Leonard watched with quiet admiration as he brought his fingertips to his full lips, plucked away the knobbly pit of a peach sucked perfectly clean and set it carelessly on the window frame.

Licking his own parched lips, Leonard glanced across to the stoneware platter where, sure enough, his mother’s meticulous display of the season’s first hydroponic peaches had been reduced by one and visually devastated as a result. His mother had placed them in the room for their appearance and fragrance, to be admired but never touched.

His lips were still stupidly parted when the Commander snapped his head around as though sensing an intruder. Leonard caught the automatic twitch of his hand towards his hip, as though reaching for his knife, noted with greater relief that his standard-issue blade lay in its sheath on the bedside table. He had clearly caught the Commander changing for the party, stripped as he was to basic black uniform pants and nothing else. Even with those stern blue-grey eyes bearing expectantly down upon him, Leonard was compelled to take in another sweeping eyeful of the older man’s lean, sharp-edged musculature before common sense kicked in and he deferentially averted his gaze.

‘Sorry,’ he offered, polite as he ever was though he didn’t let the breach of etiquette keep him from his closet, where he quickly rummaged out a custom-tailored suit of pale tan linen that he usually saved for better occasions than this. ‘I’ll be out of your way in a moment, sir.’

‘Is this your bedroom, then?’

Leonard turned to answer, eyes stuttering yet again over the Commander’s hardened torso, the visible contours of trained abdominals. ‘Yeah,’ he replied distantly, forcing his gaze back up into Pike’s coolly amused eyes.

‘So I’m sleeping in your bed.’ Even in the cold, wet confines of his dress trousers, Leonard’s dick twitched to attention at the older man’s low, teasing baritone. He cleared his throat softly, followed the Commander’s gaze towards his bed, a sturdy antique oak four-poster he had slept in since the age of six.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And where will you be sleeping, then?’

His fingers tightened on the clothes hanger in his hand, itching to use the suit to shield himself and his hard-on but he stubbornly held the suit aside; some darker, quieter part of him already missed the silky slide of Pike’s eyes drifting down his own shirtless body. ‘Down the carriage house,’ he explained with a tongue that felt suddenly too large inside his mouth. ‘South end of the property, out near the stables.’

Pike quirked an eyebrow at the specific directions. ‘Doesn’t seem fit for a respectable young man like yourself,’ he observed.

‘Oh, I spend all sorts of time down there already, sir,’ Leonard explained truthfully. Compared to his carefully maintained bedroom, the carriage house was a truly private sanctuary, a place to indulge in solitude or in the company of the few local girls who took his interest, the more than few stable hands who took an interest in him. ‘I’ve got my lab down there and everything.’

‘Lab?’ Pike’s head turned to the bookcases lining the far wall, scanning fleetingly like a man who had already examined every title. ‘On account of all these sciences you seem to enjoy, no doubt.’

‘Yes, sir.’ His chest swelled with familiar pride. ‘I’ve just finished my first year of pre-med at Ole Miss.’

‘Bit young for pre-med, aren’t you?’

‘I’m seventeen,’ he replied indignantly, hackles rising at the open astonishment in Pike’s face. ‘I’m old enough to know what I want.’

Pike’s curious gaze sharpened, then drifted casually downward again to take in his bare chest, his clinging wet trousers. ‘Seventeen,’ he repeated softly to himself. ‘Tell me, then, what exactly is it that you want?’

Leonard hesitated, blood pounding in his ears as his mind rapidly dissected the innuendo, separated it out from the question and, after a moment’s deliberation, chose to answer the latter for now. ‘I gonna be a physician in the Imperial Fleet,’ he said, jaw lifting defiantly. ‘Just like my grandfather.’

Recognition sparked in Pike’s chilling eyes, made the pride in Leonard’s heart pulse hotter than before. ‘So you’re Horatio McCoy’s grandson.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Which means,’ Pike added, something cruel dancing around the corner of his mouth, ‘that you’re also David McCoy’s son.’

His pleasure deflated with the pinprick of an unpleasant truth. ‘Obviously,’ he drawled dryly, perhaps too disrespectfully for an Imperial Commander. Disliking this line of questioning already, Leonard turned sullenly back to his closet and found a clean ivory shirt to match the suit.

‘David McCoy has made his views on the Imperial Fleet well known over the years.’ The Commander’s deep, leather-smooth voice drove forward regardless of Leonard’s wishes, impossible to ignore. ‘Surely you know how selective the Academy is about their officer candidates. We’re an elite military force, we don’t open our doors to just any citizen with an itch for conquest. Especially when their fathers are known to harbour such… unpopular viewpoints.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Leonard bit out stubbornly, spinning around on his heel to glare defiantly at Pike, mindless of the risk. He knew too damn well the obstacle his father’s stupidity had set before him. ‘Not that I’m gonna let him… er, that, stop me.’

Pike crossed his powerful arms over his bare chest, leaned back against the window frame at an angle that made the afternoon sunlight glance off his soft brown curls. ‘Is that so?’

‘Loads of kids get into the Academy from all sorts of places, no matter who their parents were or what they did… hell, orphans, even. It’s all about the connections you forge on your own, no matter where you come from, right?’

‘That can be the case, yes.’ That hint of a superior smile still played indulgently over Pike’s lips. ‘Are you saying you know someone that important in the Fleet?’

Leonard licked his lips, recognizing his moment. ‘Well,’ he said carefully, letting his eyelids bashfully lower themselves before flicking up again, ‘I think I’d really like to get to know you, sir.’

He watched, silent but thrumming inside as the teasing amusement melted from Pike’s face, giving way to the widened eyes and expressionless mouth of a man stricken to distraction. Lifting his chin slightly, Leonard let the offer hover in the air, let his body stand silent as the object of Pike’s slow, considering gaze. He could see a flicker of desire in the eyes that had lost some of their cool distance, but he remained otherwise unreadable, too controlled to surrender any other hint of interest.

‘I take it,’ Pike said finally, thoughtfully, ‘that you already know who I am. What I have done.’

Slightly thrown by the statement, Leonard nodded wordlessly, realizing now that neither of them had bothered with proper introductions. Christopher Pike’s exploits, his quicksilver mind and his subtle cruelty, were already legendary.

At his nod, Pike smirked, a touch derisively. ‘All the stories you’ve no doubt heard, and yet you want to know me even more than that.’

‘You can’t really know someone from _stories_ ,’ he scoffed.

‘You can if they’re all true.’

Leonard flinched back, from disappointment more than fear. Confusion threw him off balance, unable to decipher the Commander’s evasive reaction to what he had hoped was an unmistakable invitation. The dismissal tasted bitter on his tongue, it curled his lip irritably despite his best efforts to imitate Pike’s indifferent posturing. ‘I’d rather judge that for myself,’ he muttered, turning away in immediate mortification at his sullen outburst. He could feel the goosepimpled skin of his neck and chest warming to an embarrassed flush as he slid open a drawer and flustered through its contents, quickly finding dress socks and the brown striped tie his mother had long ago matched with the suit clutched in his other hand.

‘Stop.’

Leonard stilled his hand instinctively at the hard-edged hush of the Commander’s voice behind him, held his breath as he heard his footfalls cross the wooden floorboards. Hope, and a delicate dose of fear, prickled at the back of his neck.

‘Not that one,’ Pike elaborated softly. ‘Put it back.’

Leonard mutely let the tie drop back into the drawer, barely repressing a quiver of excitement as he felt Pike draw in close behind him, felt the desert-dry heat of the other man’s body warming his bare, clammy back.

‘Do you always dress yourself so mindlessly?’ The comment wasn’t as mocking as it could have been; Pike made it sound almost fond. ‘So typical of young boys… even if you’re nothing of the sort.’

Pike reached around him, slipped a hand into the messy drawer of silks and synthetics, stirring among Leonard’s ties and handkerchiefs in a way that managed to look obscenely probing to his overactive imagination. Eventually, Pike withdrew an older red tie he had nearly forgotten owning.

‘This one,’ Pike decided, holding it up to the light. The subtle print of the tie was nearly lost in the deep burgundy of the silk, rich like aortal blood. ‘Far more appropriate,’ he added as he looped the unraveled length of the tie loosely – once, twice – around his neck. Though it dangled freely down his bare chest, Leonard couldn’t shake off the impression of being marked: tied with a red ribbon as a reminder for, and of, the Commander.

Leonard decided he liked the feeling, gave up on pushing that impression aside and held it close instead.

‘Off you go, then,’ Pike said, a steely order contained in the fingertips that nudged into the small of his back. He darted a glance over his shoulder on the way to the doors, caught the moment that Pike looked away from his retreating back and frowned thoughtfully down at Leonard’s tidy bed.

He pulled the doors softly shut and retreated down the hall to the bathroom as quickly as he could with an erection still straining at his wet pants.

By the time he was fully stripped of his wet clothes and enclosed in the steaming glass walls of the shower, Leonard was able to think more clearly on the problem of Christopher Pike. It certainly helped that the problem of his raging hard-on had been resolved under his own hand in a matter of moments – sloppy and quick, leaning up against the bathroom door as soon as he had locked it shut.

Leonard chewed at his lower lip as he watched the last of the river’s mud wash down the drain. In the days leading up to this, Leonard had been distracted by excitement and despair, knowing that the right impression made upon a valued hero of the Empire could be his ticket to the Academy but at a loss for how best to impress his medical genius upon a man more concerned with tactics and combat.

But now he knew, with a lively jolt of anticipation, that there was a much simpler way to show his cunning, his inventiveness.

His fingers chased rapid-fire rivulets of water as the spray rushed over him, taking a pause in his careful scrubbing to admire the respectable build he had developed during his freshman year at Ole Miss. The changes wrought by more stringent meals and the track and field team still felt unfamiliar to him, as though this were someone else’s body and not his own, and his touch remained exploratory as he tested the lean strength tensing beneath his smooth skin.

This tanned, flawless flesh, on the other hand, was something Leonard knew very well. It was, after all, of his own making.

Agonizers were certainly in style in many households across the Empire, but McCoys came from old blood and demanded the same in their discipline so Leonard got the switch and the strap same as any McCoy who passed through childhood before him. The resulting wounds made it too hard to forget his weaknesses, so easily associated now with his father’s sneering face, and while he couldn’t help the bloodied stripes on his back at first, he had practiced early on by laying the switch across his own skinny thighs, biting his lip to stifle his cries until the damage had layered up just right. Grandpa’s old dermal regenerator had been clumsy in his hands the first few tries but he had conquered the method and his wounds soon enough, became adept at building up pain and blood like his old wooden bricks into towers he could knock down with a defiant sweep of his hard-earned skill and hand-me-down instruments.

The next time Father had whipped him, he rigged his dermal regenerator to heal every mark on his back that very night and made a point of wandering half-naked about the house the next morning, silently gloating though the force of his own pristine skin.

Father had been furious, had beaten him more brutally than the night before and shut him up in the attic for three days, long enough for the open welts to develop scar tissue. That had been a mistake, because Leonard loved nothing more than a challenge and before long he had pushed his skill to the point of erasing all the old scars he had ever received in addition to the new – such a messy task, removing old dermal layers to regenerate the flesh from scratch, but very much worth it. Impotent and vengeful, Father had insisted on playing out the farce several more times until his rage over the tabula rasa that was his son gave way – at last, too late – to grudging appreciation.

By the following term, Leonard had found himself enrolled in all the specialty sciences his fourteen-year-old self could ever desire.

The old familiar resentment twitched beneath his perfect skin, frustrated to have been born to the sort of man content to piss his life away in a quiet civilian practice. Father would always be the weaker of the two surviving McCoy men, a pale shadow of Horatio McCoy’s brilliant legacy as Surgeon General to the Empire. His was not the father Leonard dreamed of following, not like Horatio, or Christopher Pike for that matter. The Commander was still so young, but full of ambition and an unquestionable air of authority and already, that smallest hint of affection that Leonard was determined to kindle into desire enough to get him the hell out of Savannah.

Compared to men like Commander Pike, David McCoy was as good to him as a dead man walking.

Finally satisfied with the cleanliness of his body, Leonard shut off the shower and reached for a towel, scrubbing at the thick mess of hair clinging wet to his neck, already anticipating the day when enlisting would require him to finally circumvent his mother’s wishes and get it cut to a more reasonable length. As he mused on this happy possibility, his eye drifted over the clothes he had set out by the dressing table: suit, shirt and the Commander’s choice of tie hanging in wait.

He paused, realization clicking into place. Distracted as he had been by Pike’s presence in his room, he had forgotten to take a new pair of underwear from the next drawer down.

Slowly, even that problem resolved itself into the beginning of a perfect solution. Time for preparations was short – he could already hear the low hum of guests arriving in the entrance hall – but he knew now what he had to do.

  


\+ + +

  
The warm throb of self-congratulatory anticipation hidden deep in Leonard’s core smoldered on through cocktails in the garden and the dull parade of dinner beneath the wide marquee, his hopes amplified by the empty chair to his left where the Darnell girl would normally have sat. He could feel the demands of blood, of potent marriages and many brats brought to heel in the grand old south, draining away from his shoulders, leaving him light-headed with freedom.

 _Freedom_ , so close to hand now. His escape plan sat at the head table, brown curls bared to the sunlight and reflecting points of gold that continuously drew Leonard’s eye, hungry for something other than the present meal.

Though youthful compared to the others at the head table, the Commander was the most distinguished, the most striking of them all. He wore the dress uniform of the Imperial Fleet, sleek black standing out strong against the many frivolous colours of garden party finery. The dark cloth made the gold braid at his shoulders and cuffs spark especially hard, almost as bright as the ceremonial blades he wore despite Father’s barely contained disapproval – one long knife belted to his hip, a second tucked discrete into the top of his high and shining boot. Leonard could see neither while they ate at their respective tables, but his mind’s eye clung close to his recollection of the blades, attracted to the edge of danger promised by their sharpness.

After the desserts had been cleared away, Leonard slipped into the house and down the hall to the bar and billiards room, disappearing easily in the bustle of servants clearing tables and guests rising to mingle freely on the green. The after-dinner drinks were being served from a staffed bar under the gazebo but Leonard knew he could make a far better mint julep from the ingredients kept stocked in the house, had done so for Father ever since he had been old enough to wield a muddler.

Seven endless minutes later, Leonard emerged from the house, fingers white-knuckled and still slightly sugar-sticky around the edges of a tray balancing two drinks in their traditional silver goblets. His heart leapt with a jolt of excitement when he finally spotted Pike’s lean, dark shape near the edge of the crowd drifting idly out from under the dining marquee, though his eyes narrowed to see him occupied with that prattling cow, Lisabet Lamarche. Charm and admittedly striking good looks made her a force to be reckoned with up in Atlanta where she was widely admired and often lusted after, especially by… _ah._

His mood lightened as he narrowed in for the kill, navigating his way not to Pike and Lisabet but to his cousin Myra, sat very attractively but miserably sprawled in a dining chair turned away from a recently cleared table, elbow perched on its edge while her dainty fingers flicked irritably at the air.

He set his tray gently down on the table behind Myra before leaning in to speak softly in her ear.

‘You should go to her, y’know.’

Myra snapped her head around, auburn hair slapping him lightly across the face. ‘What’re you talking about, Leonard?’ she asked with a forced coolness that didn’t match the flint-spark of anxiety in her eyes. He shrugged mildly in response, glanced past her shoulder to the conversing pair.

‘She’s unspoken for,’ Leonard observed casually.

‘She’s occupied.’ The beginnings of a pout sulked on Myra’s diminutive mouth, tightened to a frown as she turned back around to follow Leonard’s gaze across the lawn.

‘Not in any way that counts.’ He leaned companionably closer, resting a hand on Myra’s fragile shoulder. ‘Come now, darling, surely you’ve heard that the Commander prefers men? _Everyone_ knows that.’

Exaggeration though it was, the comment was having its desired effect. From his vantage point at Myra’s side, he saw the affronted rosy glow bloom at the tips of her ears, read the haughtier set of her narrow shoulders, but also the flicker of hope in her youthful face. ‘Of course I know that,’ she replied with a weak effort of a laugh that Leonard rewarded with his own honeyed chuckle.

‘Then what the hell are you waiting for?’

Myra glanced sidelong at him in a considering sort of manner before allowing her own sweet smile to widen. ‘You, Leonard,’ she said fondly, ‘are far too kindly for your own good.’ She leaned up, pressed a slow familial kiss to the corner of his mouth before sliding to her feet, hands smoothing invisible wrinkles from her dress as she crossed the lawn towards Pike and Lisabet.

Satisfaction settled ticklish-hot in his belly as he watched Myra gently intercede herself between the pair. Yes, he agreed to himself as Myra walked Lisabet to the sickly sweet azalea gardens down the west path, positively glowing beneath Lisabet’s gem-encrusted hand at the small of her back; he was a very kind young man. An absolute fucking sweetheart, really.

His cousin’s job done, Leonard moved steadily towards Pike as quickly as he could while remaining mindful of the drinks on his tray.

‘Can I offer you a drink, sir?’

Pike tilted his head, smiled softly. ‘Wondered when I’d be seeing you again,’ he said, accepting the chilled silver goblet Leonard passed to him with no further acknowledgement. Leonard wordlessly thrust the tray at a passing servant before sipping his own mint julep, taking a second stronger swig for courage as he mustered up an appropriate opener from all the polite conversation starters in his well-trained arsenal.

‘I hope the dessert was to your liking,’ he attempted casually, eyes carefully averted to pretend disinterest. He missed the look on Pike’s face that accompanied his soft, derisive snort.

‘Does this small talk bullshit run in the family, or through the whole damn state of Georgia?’

‘I think it runs through the whole damn South, actually.’ Leonard risked a glance up at Pike, relieved to see him smile rather than scowl, exhilarated to see him take a first sip of his drink. The tip of Pike’s tongue chased a drop from his lower lip as he lowered his goblet, and Leonard clutched his drink tighter.

‘This is quite good,’ Pike observed generously, and Leonard glowed at the praise, though he knew it was more than merely good, knew that the drink had exactly enough sugar syrup to offset the burn of the bourbon, all fused perfectly with garden-fresh mint whose oils had been painstakingly crushed from the leaves without excess bruising.

It was a perfectly balanced drink, one that easily masked any trace of the contraband Orion pheromone derivative Leonard had added to Pike’s goblet.

‘If you’ve had enough of the small talk, sir,’ Leonard said politely, licking his own lips nervously, hungrily, ‘I could always show you the horses up round the stables. We’ve raised a few Derby winners here, you know.’

‘So your mother has been telling me at great detail.’ But Pike’s tone was agreeable, his eyes bright with thinly veiled interest. Leonard had done his research, knew that Pike’s people were from Mojave and had kept their own stables for several generations at least. ‘By all means, then,’ he said. ‘Show me.’

Leonard had hoped to find the stables quiet – private, preferably – but it seemed his aforementioned boastful mother was eager to show off the prize thoroughbreds to the various guests. Frustrated but resigned, he found them a relatively isolated spot at the far side of the paddock’s fence from which they could watch the in-house training staff leading four of the best horses through their paces for the entertainment of a small but growing crowd. Leonard recognized Jason Abbott leading his Tara across the way, blushed when the older boy caught his eye and leered significantly in Pike’s direction.

‘They’re fine horses,’ Pike said smoothly, a watchful eye following the dressage procession with detached professional interest. ‘Very obedient.’

‘Yes, sir, they are.’

Leonard felt the Commander’s eye turn to him, and while he refused to return the gaze so boldly as that, his body responded immediately to the gaze, stretching his long limbs and leaning forward against the fence, the better to display his lean build beneath his suit. He caught Jason pausing in his stride to take a longer look, and smiled lazily to himself in quiet satisfaction.

‘I wonder,’ Pike went on thoughtfully, ‘whether it’s not just the horses that are bred for such… docility around these parts.’

A shiver raced down Leonard’s taut spine, settled like a chemical burn at the small of his back. ‘They know how to listen to orders,’ he agreed carefully. ‘But they’re spirited. Not a one of them broke without making a good hard fight of it first.’

Holding perfectly still, he caught the barely perceptible sound of Pike sucking in a soft, harsh breath, the slight groan beneath his slow, steadying exhale. ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ he said eventually, tightly.

Leonard forced his mind to rewind through their brief conversation, then grinned brightly. ‘You didn’t ask a question.’

‘Smart-mouthed little brat.’ A strong hand closed around his bicep and tugged, hard: disrupting his balance, sloshing his drink and making him falter sideways, closer to Pike’s body. He staggered clumsily to regain his feet, gasped when Pike pushed him forward instead, pinning him to the wooden fence post with nothing but the precise pressure of his hand and a carefully positioned knee. There was distance enough between them that Leonard knew that none of the other spectators around the dusk-dimmed paddock would notice anything amiss. ‘Answer this, then – are we still talking about those damn horses, or not?’

The growl of the question brushed hot breath over his ear, and Leonard had to close his eyes to steady himself, the fingers of his free hand clutching tight to the fence. ‘No, sir,’ he answered softly. ‘No, I don’t think we are.’

‘Good boy,’ and Leonard nearly moaned out loud when the hand clutching his arm tightened to the other side of pain, when Pike bowed his head down closer to – _fuck_ – greedily inhale his scent, no doubt catching the sweat of his nervousness through light-spun linen. ‘Tell me where I should take you, then. Some place where no one will ever think to look for you.’

‘The… the woods,’ he decided, tilting his head in the direction of the dense and wild woods that infringed upon the edges of the McCoy property. It would be less convenient, less comfortable than taking Pike to the carriage house or the stables, but also a lot more secluded, with thick foliage and the night’s chorus of animals and insects to drown any sounds of sex…

He hissed sharply at the touch of chilled metal to the back on his neck and snapped his eyes open. The Commander smirked down at him, brought the cold silver goblet back up to his lips for another long drink.

‘Too soon for you to be getting that excited,’ he said roughly, and Leonard blushed to realize he had been surreptitiously rubbing off against the fence post, his lust racing far ahead of himself. ‘Unless you want me to fuck you up against that post here and now, I suggest you start walking.’

Leonard gave the idea a dizzying moment’s thought before rejecting it and doing as he was told instead. The stables were the outermost markers of civilization on the McCoy property before the woods took over, and the darkness of ancient oaks and rambling vines swallowed them quickly, Leonard first with the Commander’s boot heels snapping dead twigs not far behind. The distant sounds of the after-dinner festivities drowned to nothing, and he took another bracing swallow of his mint julep as he slowed in a clearing by the creek to scan the lay of the earth he knew so well.

‘Come here.’ A firm hand seized him by the elbow and spun him around with a roughness that made his silver goblet slip from his grasp and spill across the ground. Staring back with wide eyes, Leonard saw that Pike still held his own drink, watched mutely as he drained it dry before throwing his own goblet aside and pulling Leonard forward into their first kiss.

Shame stabbed at Leonard’s sense of victorious relief; he was a well-practiced kisser but this was far from his best effort. The cold rush of sweetened alcohol pouring into his mouth was a surprise, made him choke and panic, mind racing to calculate his risk of being affected by the Orion aphrodisiac from a single mouthful of the drugged drink. Best he could do was to keep his mouth slack and accommodating, let his tongue slide and tangle with Pike’s when invited to do so. Most of the mint julep dribbled messily from the corners of his plundered lips, but Leonard forgot any embarrassment at his clumsiness when Pike drew back from the penetrating depths of their kiss to lap at the stickiness coating his mouth and jawline. The flat, broad sweeps of his tongue were rough against his skin, as bestial as the low growls rumbling up through Pike’s chest. The Commander was breathing rapid and harsh, all his calm restraint crumbling away.

He tangled Leonard’s tie around his fist, wrenched him closer to bite away the drips of drink on his neck. ‘On your knees, boy,’ he snarled. Between the firm downward tug on his tie and the weakening of his knees, Leonard dropped easily to the ground, the earth hard and uneven through the fine linen weave of his pants.

Closing his eyes, Leonard let the Commander push his face up against his groin, feeling the full length of his dick bulging through his uniform pants. Pike was unyieldingly hard, throbbing hot against his cheek; the pheromones were clearly doing their job. He turned his face, long hair twisting harder in Pike’s grip as he mouthed over the shape of his erection. On a hungry whim, he dragged his teeth against the straining cloth, grinned when Pike hissed above him.

‘Pretty damn sure of yourself, aren’t you?’ he panted, eyes gleaming bright upon him. ‘Letting strange men drag you off into the woods… what makes you think I won’t just fuck that pretty mouth of yours and drown you in the creek?’

‘Like I hadn’t thought of that,’ Leonard scoffed. Like he hadn’t been half-hard all evening at the very thought of that danger. As a precaution, though, he let one slack hand rest on the shining leather shaft of Pike’s right boot, trailing up within reach of the knife hilt concealed there, in no hurry to take it yet but just in case…

The solid blow of Pike’s kneecap struck him square in the chest, throwing Leonard back into the dirt, dazed and breathless. He coughed weakly, instinctively rolling sideways into a defensive curl but Pike was too fast upon him, knees pushing his thighs apart and hands pinning his wrists to the ground. Forcing himself to look directly into Pike’s eyes, Leonard was somewhat relieved to see a smile on his lips, though it was of a frighteningly feral sort.

‘Nice try, son, but too slow by far.’ Leonard shuddered with an unspeakable pleasure, feeling the faint praise sinking through his skin as surely as the weight of the Commander’s body bearing down upon him, their groins rubbing feverishly together as lips resumed their work of sucking a bruise into his throat. He writhed eagerly beneath the hands impatiently clawing away his shirt and tie before realizing that his own hands were free to wander in return; he reached up, tentative but desperate to test the strength of Pike’s arms and shoulders, released a shaky moan at the power contained beneath his roaming fingers.

He relinquished his touch only when Pike dragged his hands away to pull them from the tangled sleeves of his shirt and jacket, which Pike carelessly threw aside before he shifted further down between his splayed legs to address Leonard’s belt buckle. His hips stuttered, simultaneously arching into and flinching away from the rasp of the zipper sliding over the sensitive skin of his erection, an involuntarily blush warming his face when Pike’s low, dirty laugh huffed over him.

‘Didn’t bother with underwear today, hmn?’ Rough fingers snared his dick, pumped him lazily. ‘Naughty boy.’ And Pike swallowed him, head bobbing and tongue flicking fast and merciless all over his length. He sucked harder, teasing him for several time-stoppingly perfect moments before sliding off with a lewd smack of his lips. Leonard whined, panting heavily; even that short duration in the Commander’s mouth immediately ranked as the best blowjob of his life, including anything Jason Abbott had ever tried on him.

Pike finished removing his pants, shoes and socks while Leonard lay stunned and shaking in the wake of that fleeting ecstasy, letting the older man lift and bend his legs with the compliance of a rag doll. He expected little more than for Pike to fold him in half and fuck him senseless, but Pike dropped his legs back to the humid-hot earth instead before rising to his feet. Confused, Leonard braced his hands on the ground, preparing to stand as well.

‘Stay.’ The heel of Pike’s boot gouged warningly into his shoulder. Sucking in a sharp pained hiss, Leonard nodded acceptance of the order, remained prone on the forest floor as he watched Pike strip off his high-collared jacket and the fitted black shirt beneath. Even in the dark of the woods, his powerful upper body absorbed what little light there was to be had, glowing with the paleness of a man long used to space travel. His chest heaved with deep, rapid breaths as he threw off the belt bearing his knife and fumbled at the fastenings of his pants, and Leonard licked his lips at the hint of Pike’s engorged shaft impeding his efforts, quietly stroked himself as the flushed heaviness of the older man’s erection finally came into view.

As though sensing the movement of Leonard’s hand towards his own cock, Pike’s head tilted downward, eyes narrowing hard upon his prize. ‘Fuck,’ he rasped, ‘look at you…’ He dropped back down upon Leonard without bothering to push his pants any further down; the heavy fabric of his Fleet uniform chafed at Leonard’s inner thighs as Pike rutted feverishly against him, the hot dry pressure of Pike’s erection pushing at some strange new boundary between pleasure and discomfort. Teeth found his throat again, fingers crawled demandingly over his lips, which Leonard parted willingly when the command to suck was hushed into his ear.

Those spit-damp fingers made their way down between his legs and Leonard held his breath, watching the Commander’s face closely as the first finger slipped effortlessly inside. ‘Already wet for me,’ he commented softly, and Leonard gasped as that one finger swiftly became two. ‘Either you’re really eager to get fucked, or someone else has already been here today…’

Leonard moaned, spreading his legs wider and bearing down on Pike’s exploring hand. ‘No… no one else…’

Pike laughed, a dark lilting sound as he withdrew his fingers and clutched at Leonard’s thigh, forcing him wider open. ‘And why should I believe that? A filthy slut like you… can tell you’re no blushing virgin…’

While Pike was correct about his long lost virginity, even his careful preparations earlier that afternoon didn’t spare him the sudden and painful stretch of being filled in a single thrust that took him straight to the hilt. Leonard screamed sharply, accidentally, grateful when Pike’s hand slapping over his mouth stifled the shameful sound.

‘Ssshhh… that’s it, baby…’ Pike soothed approvingly, whispering sweet nonsense as Leonard steadied himself with harsh breaths through his nose, blinking back tears. ‘Sweet boy… don’t want to get us caught, now, do you?’

Leonard shook his head emphatically, drew in deeper gasps of thick springtime air when Pike released his mouth and gathered him closer, strong arms snaking under his shoulders and anchoring him inward for several long, searing thrusts, each forcing a wrenching groan from Leonard’s throat. His spine ached, from the hard upward curl of his hips to the rough glide of his bare back over dirt, twigs and rocks that scraped his skin open. Only the bruising grip of Pike’s hands around his shoulders felt protected, safe, and he moaned his gratitude when Pike wrenched his whole body upward, keeping Leonard firmly impaled on his cock while he reared back on his haunches and gathered his naked, dirt-scabbed body onto his lap.

‘I know how bad you want this,’ Pike hushed, like a secret. ‘Show me then… show me how much you love getting fucked…’ His large hands closed around Leonard’s sharp hipbones, setting a momentum that he couldn’t help but follow, thigh muscles he barely recognized responding to the need to lift and lower himself over Pike’s hard shaft. Something in this changed angle stabbed a clearer note of pleasure through him, drove him harder on to seek it out again and again, riding the Commander with all the energy he could muster.

Pike’s grip dropped from his hips, caught Leonard’s hands as he started to reach towards his own desperate erection, and twisted them behind his back instead. He whined sharply as Pike crushed his wristbones within the grasp of one hand, reached up to clutch his neck with the other. Despite the denial of his own touch, Leonard’s dick twitched hard between their sweating bodies. Pike grinned savagely, squeezed his captive tighter still.

‘So this is how you like it,’ Pike growled. He used his hold on Leonard’s neck and wrists to bring him closer, bowing his head to bite hard across his chest. His teeth found a nipple, tugged hard, and Leonard shouted out, bucking erratically in Pike’s lap.

‘Yes,’ he confessed, mouth gaping greedily to draw air past the constriction of his windpipe that, far from terrifying him as it should, felt recklessly incredible. ‘Yes… _please_ , sir…’

With lust rushing so hot and close beneath his skin, Leonard wasn’t quite sure what he was begging for, but Pike answered with a low, hoarse groan and released his throat, dragging blunt fingernails straight down his sternum and belly and finding the head of his cock, dripping wet between them. A single twist of his fingers was all it took to push Leonard helplessly to orgasm – head snapping back, lungs burning for breath, every muscle seizing and shuddering through an ecstasy that left him flayed to the bone. He felt the throbbing and heard the strangled moan of Pike reaching his own release within the clenching of his ass, a second wave of fluid heat hotter than his own racing blood flooding him from the inside.

Pike bit his shoulder as he came, hard enough to draw more blood from his broken skin, but Leonard felt it as a minor echo beneath a wider, muffling wave of pleasure. When the Commander pushed his wet fingers to Leonard’s panting lips, he licked them clean with lazy obedience, still compelled by the restraining hold on his wrists. That knot of pressure at the small of his back hadn’t relented at all through Pike’s orgasm; neither, Leonard noted with a squirm of his hips, had Pike’s erection. The immediate effects of the drug hadn’t worn off quite yet.

Wincing now in recognition of the soreness beneath his waning pleasure, Leonard shifted clumsily in Pike’s lap. He had very nearly lifted himself free when Pike growled warningly and slammed him back down by the shoulder. Tiny white supernovae sparked across his vision at the added assault to his sensitive passage, at the tighter grinding of his wristbones in Pike’s hand.

He sucked in a nervous gasp, trying to master his rising panic. Even in its most intense test dosages, Orion pheromones usually wore off with a second orgasm; he could cope with that, he _would_ cope with that.

‘So fucking beautiful…’ Pike was gazing at him through eyes gone diamond-bright from the drug and lust. ‘No idea what you’ve done to me, but _fuck_ …’ He dragged Leonard into another kiss, sloppy and sticky with the flavour of mint and bourbon still sharp on Pike’s tongue. Leonard suppressed a shudder of fear at the taste, tangled his tongue as dirty and lewd as he had learned in the stables under his many early teachers.

‘Let me suck you off, sir,’ he asked, sweet as he knew how, the suggestion brushed close to Pike’s lips. The aspiring doctor in him cringed at the idea of something so unsanitary but hell, he had antibiotics in his lab and the very idea of Pike fucking his ass again was already setting his nerves trembling with a mixture of reactions he didn’t dare examine too closely.

Pike’s mouth curved against his own in a wry smirk. ‘A bit sore, are you?’

Leonard hesitated, chewed his kiss-bruised lower lip.

‘Are you, baby?’ A cruel note of derision entered Pike’s voice; he pulled Leonard’s long hair, hard, wrenching his head back. The patches of sky through the canopy of oak trees were starless and dark. ‘Had enough, have you?’

Defiantly, stubbornly, he shook his head.

‘Good.’ Pike threw him off his lap, sent him sprawling across the ground again. Beyond the sting of dirt in his abraded back, the sudden absence of Pike’s cock amplified the ache, left him feeling too open and hollow. He almost felt a perverse sense of relief when hot breath seared the back of his neck, bruising hands forcing him up on knees and elbows. His thighs shook as Pike penetrated him again with a force that knocked them both flat to the ground. Leonard moaned – partly in pain, largely with a renewed surge of arousal – as the sweating heat of Pike’s chest fused itself along his back, as fingers tangled once more in his hair.

‘Your lips are so red,’ Pike groaned, twisting his head around to nibble ruthlessly at his swollen lower lip. ‘Make you look so debauched… everyone out there is going to know what you’ve been up to…’

Leonard opened his mouth wider, trying to tongue back at Pike’s lips and keening in frustration when Pike drew back with a last savage nip. ‘Whatever would your dear parents think of their sweet little boy,’ he taunted breathlessly, each word a sharp jab in time to the thrusts of his hips. ‘Your father would be so livid he’d take you over his knee right there in the garden and give you a spanking in front of everyone.’

A snarl broke through Leonard’s helpless lust, rebelling against the intrusion of Father’s disapproving face on his immediate pleasure. ‘Fuck off,’ he snapped, then cried out when Pike slammed him back down to the ground, slapped his ass before fucking him even harder than before.

‘Then again, he clearly never taught you manners,’ Pike said, fingers tightening in his hair, pressing him facedown into dirt gone sticky-sweet from its libation of discarded mint juleps. ‘Guess I’ll just have to do it myself… drag you up to your room and sling you over my lap, smack this tight ass of yours so hard you’ll be crying for me to stop, still be sniveling like a bitch when I tie you up to that proper little boy’s bed of yours and shut you up with my cock down your throat… keep fucking you anyway I like until you learn your place, you dirty little… oh, _fuck_ …’

Distantly, Leonard knew it was his own second orgasm, forcibly ground out from the rough friction of the earth against his cock, that had once again pushed the Commander to his own release. Shaking though he was, a smug satisfaction made him go limp across the ground, stripped mindless of worry when firm hands rolled him face-up, not even caring that there was now an ancient root digging unpleasantly into his coccygeal vertebra. He mustered only the softest, laziest hum when he felt a thumb pass over his cheekbone, wiping away stray tears and dirt.

The hand paused in its path, rested warm on the side of his face.

‘You didn’t flinch.’ Pike’s voice was quiet with wonder.

Leonard shrugged, eyes still closed. ‘Should I?’

‘Most boys would.’

‘I’m not most boys.’ He knew that now, more than he ever had before. With some effort, Leonard blinked his eyes open, catching a glimpse of something unreadable in Pike’s face through the fog of his damp eyelashes.

‘You really are something else,’ he said, perhaps with a hint of admiration. ‘Might have to keep you tied to the bed after all in your off-hours at the Academy. You’d be nothing but trouble otherwise.’

Leonard’s eyes widened as the meaning in Pike’s comment sank slowly through his lust-clouded head. ‘You’ll sponsor my admission to the Academy?’

Pike hesitated, lips parted, mind clearly working fast. He clearly hadn’t meant to say it so soon, and Leonard’s exhausted elation glowed slightly warmer.

‘Someone’s got to,’ he answered eventually. Pike’s thumb passed along his jaw, traced his hope-slackened lips and slipped into his mouth. ‘I looked up your aptitude scores before dinner,’ he said. ‘I’d be stupid not to take you on as a protégé before someone else beats me to it. Besides,’ he added with a nasty smirk, ‘someone needs to save your pretty ass from getting reamed by anyone who crosses your path. You’ve got the sort of mouth that simply begs for to be fucked.’

‘Well, best just make it clear that my ass and mouth belong to you, and you won’t have anything to worry about,’ Leonard countered in a coy drawl. Scarcely believing his good fortune, he scrambled to sit up but Pike’s hand captured his neck again and pushed him back down, swallowing nervously beneath the steady pressure on his throat.

‘Last warning,’ Pike said firmly. His fingers relaxed slightly, but the strength in his grip was unmistakable. ‘I will own far more of you than your ass and those cocksucking lips of yours. You’ll be mine, in every sense your clever little mind can imagine. I’ll even claim you as my personal physician when I’m promoted to Captain, provided you’re truly the medical prodigy your records make you out to be. The Academy has high standards, and mine are higher still. Stay sharp and do as I say, and I’ll guarantee your every need is met.’ His eyes narrowed, his fingers twitched. ‘You fail to please me, make a stupid mistake, and I will punish you. You betray me, and I’ll throw you to the wolves.’

Challenge, protection, and the promise of a firm hand to guide him – it was everything Leonard had ever desired. ‘I understand,’ he said, a broken hush past the fingers clutching his windpipe. He sucked in a deep, much-needed breath when Pike released him, watchful and far more solemn as Pike settled back on the ground, one knee drawn up, absently fingering the knife in his boot. The silence that had fallen between them felt like a contract in itself, something that Leonard was determined to seal for good.

With a cautious eye fixed on the Commander, Leonard dragged his jacket from the ruin of last winter’s dead leaves, rummaging through the inside pockets until he found his hypospray. ‘Here, then,’ he offered, reaching towards Pike’s neck and gasping with an echo of pain-tinged arousal when his hand shot out and snared his aching wrist.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Pike’s steely grip slowly crushed the carpals of Leonard’s wrist but he fought to retain control of the hypospray in his stubborn fingers.

‘Giving you the antidote,’ he ground out through clenched teeth and the fog of a renewed heat climbing his spine. This brutal treatment would leave him with some serious bruising, and for once Leonard wasn’t even thinking of his dermal regenerator.

‘Antidote.’ Pike’s eyes narrowed, flinty and dangerous. ‘For what.’

‘For the side effects of the aphrodisiac I put in your drink.’ Leonard flashed a determined grin. ‘You know, the one that gave you the stamina to nail me twice just now. You’re quite welcome, by the way, but unless I give you this…’

‘What?’ Pike asked sharply, barking out a humourless laugh. ‘You planning to kill me, boy?’

‘Of course not.’ Leonard scoffed inwardly at the idea; his useless father aside, the McCoy reputation was worth too much to be sending corpses out from any of the family’s garden parties – his mother would never forgive him. He gestured weakly with the hypospray in his numbing fingers, drawing Pike’s gaze downward. ‘Orion pheromone derivatives are potent, but they counteract testosterone levels in human males at an escalating scale. Goes real gradual-like, but six months from now you’ll never be able to get it up ever again.’

Pike stared, deadly silent, then smirked wryly. ‘Figures the best a teenaged medical genius could come up with was something to shrivel my dick,’ he muttered to himself, not without amusement. ‘Rather petty revenge, isn’t it?’

‘Insurance,’ Leonard corrected.

‘Then aren’t you acting too soon?’

‘I would be if I gave you all three doses up front.’

Pike tilted his head, smile widening. ‘And I suppose you have a schedule in place for dispensing those other two doses?’ He sighed indulgently at Leonard’s short nod, released his wrist and even leaned solicitously inward, craning his throat into the hypospray’s brief sting.

‘One in good faith,’ Leonard explained, a rush of bravery compelling him to crawl into Pike’s lap, straddling his hips with all the pleasure and pride of the day he mounted his first horse. ‘Another when you deliver my enlistment papers – in person, of course.’ He flexed his overexerted thighs, grinding up against Pike’s belly, his intention plain. ‘You get the last dose once I’m officially enrolled in the Medical track.’

‘So soon?’ Pike rested a hand over the curve of his ass, squeezing firmly. ‘Are you sure you want to hand this ass and that pretty mouth over to me without keeping some leverage over your master?’

He squirmed at the rasping threat in Pike’s question. ‘Very sure,’ he choked out, gasping sharply when Pike growled low in response and forced two fingers back into his come-slicked hole. _This_ was leverage enough for him.

‘The second you give me that last dose, this will be mine.’ Pike fingered his ass with slow, lewd strokes that made his come drip messily between Leonard’s splayed thighs. ‘Mine to use whenever and however I see fit… are you prepared for that, boy?’

‘I’m… _ah_ , looking forward to it… sir.’

‘ _Fuck._ ’ Leonard bit back a mewling whine of disappointment as Pike withdrew his fingers, ran his damp hand up and down his back in an unnecessarily soothing motion instead. ‘You might be the death of me,’ he muttered, so softly Leonard wasn’t sure that he was meant to have heard at all. Suddenly uncertain but with his skin still aching to be touched, he nuzzled closer to the Commander’s chest, burying his nose in the junction of the older man’s neck and shoulder. Despite the blades and the bruises, the musk of his aftershave and the broad hand running up and down his spine felt safe, secure, like coming home. He exhaled into boneless relaxation, nearly purred at the kiss that landed somewhere in the mess of his hair.

‘Sweet boy,’ Pike rumbled gently. ‘Come on,’ he squeezed and released his ribcage, firm pressure of fingers bringing him back to life. ‘They’ll be wondering where I got off to, and you best get yourself presentable again. Well…’ His eye flashed sideways to the dirty, rumpled remains of Leonard’s suit. ‘As presentable as we can manage, I guess,’ he added ruefully.

Leonard raised a complaining eyebrow. ‘Thought you were going to drag me up to my room?’

A wicked little smile played over Pike’s lips. ‘I don’t think your dear parents would approve too well of that.’

‘You’re a Commander in the Imperial Fleet,’ he pointed out, attempting but failing to repress a gleeful smirk. ‘They can’t do a damn thing to stop you.’

Pike gazed up at him with cold eyes gone hot again, fingers wending through his long, messy hair, tugging just hard enough to set Leonard shivering all over again. ‘Neither can you,’ he promised softly.


End file.
